Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Like most 40K players I have my own ideas about how things "ought" to be.   I'm planning a summer campaign with some friends and I'm considering trying to get them to agree to some "House Rules" I think will improve the game.   I want to make sure that I'm not inflicting something horribly imbalancing on them, so I'd welcome any comments pointing out problems I might  have overlooked in these ideas.

Defensive Tactics (Influenced by Flames of War)

The following are optional tactics you may choose to use.    They are designed to give players more ways to acheive game objectives without actually wiping out the other side.  Each confers drawbacks as well as advantages.

Going to Ground.    Troops may choose to "Go to Ground", at the start OR end of your turn.   This represents making themselves as small as possible targets and making sure their most effective armor is towards the enemy.

*  If they go to ground at the START of your turn, they count as Pinned during the current turn, even if immune to pinning normally.

* If they go to ground at the END of your turn, they count as Pinned during your NEXT turn.

As with normal pinning, being assaulted negates the effects of going to ground.

 

Effects of Going to Ground:

Gone to Ground Troops take 1/2 as many wounds from shooting in the opponents turn following the turn they went to ground.    This is calculated AFTER armor or cover saves are rolled and seperately for each type of weapon in a firing squad.   For odd numbers of wounds, roll a die - on a 4+ the wound is taken, on a 3 or less it is negated.

Example:   An imperial guard squad fires 8 lasguns and 1 heavy bolter at a group of Ork 'ardboys who have gone to ground.   The lasguns (somehow) inflict 4 wounds, the orks save 2, leaving 2 wounds caused, which is cut in half to 1 wound, against which the orks get their 4+ saves.   The Heavy Bolter inflicts 1 wound.   On a 4+ it is rounded up, and the orks take an AP 4 wound (no save), otherwise it is negated.

Gone to Ground troops are at a disadvantage if assaulted. They:

*  Strike at 1/2 initiative score (rounded down) if assaulted in the open.

*  Strike in normal initiative order if assaulted in cover, or at 1/2 initiatve  if assaulted with frag or plasma grenades.

 

Overwatch.   Troops using overwatch take careful aim on a spot where they expect the enemy to be in the future, preparing to blast them with everything they have.   This tactic is useful when you expect an enemy to break cover at a certain point, or you want to ensure that you get off a round of rapid fire before you are assaulted.

A unit that does not move may, instead of shooting, place on Overwatch maker anywhere within line of sight. 

They may then shoot during the opponents following turn at an enemy unit that moves at any time within 12" of the marker.

If no enemy moves inside the overwatch zone (even if there were enemy units inside the zone, but they chose to stay stationary), the overwatch unit does not get to fire at another target and its turn is wasted.   Therefore this tactic is limited - the enemy can simply avoid your field of fire.

Breaking from Close Combat

Sometimes it is better to flee from an assault then to hold.   This is an extremely difficult manuever to execute and freqently fatal.   You cannot break from close combat on the turn you are assaulted (or assault the enemy for that matter), but you can break on the following turn after that.

*  A unit must declair that it will flee from combat at the start of the close combat phase.   The fleeing unit does not take any of its attacks, the enemy unit  takes all attacks at initiatve 2 or better.   After casualties, the fleeing unit automatically falls back as though it had lost combat and failed its moral check.   It must roll off using its initiative value to escape as normal, except that in this case the breaking unit wins ties and gets away.

Suppression Fire

Also known as covering fire, suppression fire involves blasting away with everything you have in attempt to stop an enemy squad that is about to do something very bad.  It is less effective than aimed fire ("short controlled bursts" , but it is very impressive, and even fearless troops can be slowed by the sheer wall of lead.   It also helps to cover assaulting troops.

* Only units that remained stationary may use Suppressing Fire.

* Declair that you will use suppression fire before rolling to hit with the squad after target priority checks in the shooting phase.

* The number of wounds caused by suppression fire is halved - use the same proceedure as for "gone to ground" above (if targeting a gone to ground unit apply it twice).

* IF the suppression fire WOULD have caused 25% casualties (before halving) the targeted unit takes a pinning test.   They will most likely pass this, but  they also count as "Suppressed" during the following turn.   Even Fearless or mindless troops can be suppressed.

Supressed Units:

  *    Get no bonus attack for assaulting.   If they normally get more than one, they get one less.

*   If assaulted, they are penalized as though they had "gone to ground" above.

*    When they shoot, they get only 1/2 as many shots with each type of weapon.   If they have only 1 shot with weapon of a certain type, roll a die, on a 4+ they get the shot.

*   They both move and assualt as if in difficult terrain, but abilities that negate difficult terrain or add extra dice do not help.

*   They may not march move (see below).

*Ordinance and barrage weapons may not use supression fire.

* Multiple units may combine to use suppression fire, but this must be declaired before any unit fires.   If not, each one calculates weither or not it causes suppression seperately.

Immune:   Independant characters without units, Monstrous creatures, vehicles, and units with a majority 2+ armor save cannot be suppressed.

Suppression Weapons.

Heavy Weapons with multiple shots (at least heavy 2 or better) and assault weapons with at least 3 shots (assault 3 - but remember that they must remain stationary) count as "suppression weapons".    Each such weapon is considered to have caused an extra wound for purposes of seeing if a unit is suppressed only.    Thus 3 heavy bolters that score 2 wounds would count as scoring 5 wounds for purposes of supression.

Crossfire.

Crossfire is defined as being shot at by 2 units at least 24 inches apart, one of which is outside its deployment zone.   The fire of one of these units (chosen by the player who is being shot at - AFTER a crossfire is declaired) automatically counts as suppression fire, though its wounds caused are not halved.

 

March Moving.

Units which do not shoot may choose to move 9" in the movement phase (infantry) or 18" (vehicles - fast vehicles may not march).  If they do this they may not assault this turn (includes passagers, who also may not shoot) and the enemy is allowed to reroll misses when shooting at them in the following turn.

 

 

Interesting but I would suggest a few changes:

Going to ground: It would appear that having the ability to go to ground at the end of your turn would be a bit over powering (I move, shoot the heck out of you, and go to ground. Good luck returning fire). I would limit it to only being an option at the start of your turn. I should also point out that your description of taking wounds while having gone to ground states you halve wounds after making armor saves, but your example halves it before armor saves. Which is correct?

Overwatch: I cringed when I saw you trying to put the worst 40k game mechanic ever introduced back into the game. I would suggest you drop this one from the list entirely. However if you are gong to stick with it, I would reduce the spot range from 12 to 6 inches. Having a 24 inch diameter circle you can pick targets from gives you quite a large area of cover. Bringing it down to a 12 inch diameter (any point within 6 inches of the marker) would be much more reasonable if you are going to do it at all.

Breaking from Close Combat: Looks reasonable.

Suppression Fire: I would change the dynamic of this function entirely. I would say you shoot at the target normally however casualties are not removed. Instead the unit must take a pin check with a negative modifier equal to the number of casualties they would have suffered. I would also make it so that fearless units are not effected (they are fearless after all).

Suppression Weapons: If you keep suppression as you have it, these seem to be ok. If you change suppression based on my suggestion, you should probably remove the "Suppression Weapons" category since it will begin to get too powerful.

Crossfire: This rule seems extraneous.

March Moving: Unless you are playing on a significantly larger than normal board, I would not suggest implementing this rule. Movement rates as they currently stand are fairly balanced and allow for a good range of mobility. The proposed march rules speed up basically all the slow units in the game without giving a boost to the fast units. Homogenizing the movement rates is not a good idea. If you are playing on a particularly large board (I once played on a 12 foot x 12 foot table) you can do something along the lines of "anything can move 2x their normal movement (or 1.5 if 2 seems like too much) as a march move". However its important to allow everything to move faster so that things that pay points for being fast are not getting screwed out of their abilities by everything else in the game getting faster and slow units are not getting an advantage that they do not have to pay points for.

hmmmm, some interesting stuff there and some nice ideas.
Personally I like to keep things simple and easy to understand so my two cents is...


**Going to Ground**
I like the idea of this (the anticipation of the enemy about to lay hundreds of rounds into your squad) but think it is a bit complicated. Why not make it read a little like this.

A squad can opt to "Go to Ground" at the begin of their movement phase and count as being pinned until the begining of their next movement phase
When shot at, all saving throws are re-rollable except against instant kill weapons.
If assualted the pinned unit counts as having Initiative 2 for the first round of combat only (give a good advantage and a good disadvantage without stretching rules)


**Overwatch**
Destroy, burn, evil, quiazimodo of natra damn etc etc
Think this one may be a bad idea and possibly cause less enjoyment in a game.


**Breaking from CloseCombat**
Again another nice idea, how many players have seen their troopers assualted by a wraithlord knowing full well that winning is impossible. I for one would love to be able to flee.

Why not simple say, that in the assualt phase your unit can opt not to do its attacks in close combat and instead attempt to break and run(one could imagine that instead of attacking they are bracing themselves ready to run without being cut down)

You declare you are running away at the begining of the assualt phase, your opponents does his attacks on you with any wounds or casulties inflicted. You assume that you have failed the leadership test.

Then when doing the initiative test, the person fleeing rolls two dice instead of one and adds them both to the score, the opponent chasing only rolls one and adds it to the score. (you could imagine that they were preparing to flee so would be less likely to be cut down.

The fleeing unit counts as broken so would have to attempt to regroup as per normal rules at the beginning of their next turn.


**Supression Fire**
Why not simple say that any weapon that can shoot 3 or more times counts as being a pinning weapon. May as well use rules that already exist in the rulebook but make it easier to have the effects of pinning apply.

Example, a heavy bolter can shoot 3times. If the unit suffered a casulty they have to test for pinning. If the unit had two heavy bolters and the unit suffered a casulty they would test for pinning with -1 modifier for being hit by two pinning weapons. 3 HBolters would cause -2 modifier etc.

**Crossfire**
Same as above but modifer is doubled if in crossfire?????


**March Moving**
PEH!! HUMBUG. I think the same as "Phoenix" thinks to be honest.

Some nice house rules you thought up. Would personally try to keep them simple and if possible use rules that already exist like use pinning rules for "Going to Ground" or using modifer effects that already exist like multiple pinning checks etc.

Also I would like to see your final draft when its ready, might give a few of them a go in my games for a bit of added variety

Hope my thoughts help

Thanks! I appreciate the ideas for simplifying things.

For Gone to Ground:
Going to ground after taking your full turn of moving and shooting is too good, I agree. Would allowing it after moving but not shooting (plus giving up your next turn) be a fair exchange? I see as mostly useful to hold objectives or preserve a key unit that is in a tough spot.

Rather than halving casualties a reroll is much simpler in terms of rules. However, it would be next to useless to many armies and huge for space marines. (Rerolling a 6+ save isn't much help. : ) How about
"going to ground allows a unit to reroll failed saves. The rerolled saves suceed on a 4+"


For Overwatch:
I've never played with it so I don't have the same prejudice most do - then again I haven't seen its effects. A smaller area might be OK. The main use I see for it is gauranteeing that you get a shot at a unit that is about to assault you - hard on fast fragile units like hormagaunts that rely on passing through the rapid fire band in one turn - otherwise I can't see it being used that much. My understanding of the old overwatch rules was that you still got to shoot even if nobody moved, which meant you didn't lose anything by it. My idea was that you would be "conceeding the initiative" - making one area unpleasant to assault, but allowing your enemy to simply move off elsewhere or wait. So unless you were on the objective, you'd basically be wasting a turn of shooting.

March moving -
My thought was to counter the effect of suppression fire for slow armies like orks, allowing them to get into action in a reasonable time if they could beat down the enemy fire enough. With the enemy rerolling shooting against marching troops its a risky tactic at best. I also really feel that transports need more tactical mobility - the problem with rhinos isn't so much that they're vulnerable, its that they're slow. Combine with with the 2" embark and disembark and they aren't at all useful for repositioning your troops. The risk of riding in one would be worth it if you actually got to a new position and could get out of it in battle formation. As it stands you're almost better off walking unless you need to go a huge distance (rare in most games). Manuevers like sending your armor around the flank are usually useless because you don't get there before the game ends.

Supression Fire:
This is the idea I most want to work - a way to limit your enemy's actions without having to kill them all. This is something I like about FOW - that you can win the game without killing 75% of your enemy's army. Unfortunately, its very complicated to make viable, since the rules just aren't easy to fit in. You can't really make it work with LD tests because it would fall so heavily on the few low LD/non fearless armies, and it has to involve giving up something, or it makes shooting too powerful. It has to factor in both armor, toughness and the firing weapons, or you could buy cheap squads and supress everyone in sight. Sigh.

Posted By truax on 06/01/2007 8:05 AM

For Gone to Ground:
Rather than halving casualties a reroll is much simpler in terms of rules. However, it would be next to useless to many armies and huge for space marines. (Rerolling a 6+ save isn't much help. : ) How about
"going to ground allows a unit to reroll failed saves. The rerolled saves suceed on a 4+"

We can simplify this even more.  Squads that go to ground are pinned and gain "feel no pain" (against shooting attacks only) until their next turn.  How's that sound?

In 2nd edition if you didn't move or fire on your turn, you could go into over watch.  It allowed you to fire during your opponents movement phase (with a -1 to hit and an additional -1 to hit if your target moved out from or into cover).  Since a -1 or -2 to hit usually wasn't too much of a penalty, the game would play like this...

(top of the first) My whole army goes on over watch.  Your turn

(bottom of the first) I try to move... oh wait, I get shot to pieces and my careful deployment of keeping things out of sight and the mobile abilities of my army don't help me at all.

I'm going to be play testing two of your better ideas in a few matches to see what we think of them. heres the rules we are thinking of playing them to. I've also added one that we already currently use for deepstike


Going to Ground
*A squad declares they are "Going to Ground" at the end of their movement phase.
*The squad counts as being Pinned and having "Feel No Pain" special rules until the start of the their next movement phase.
*If assualted by the enemy the squad being assualted by the enemy counts as being Initative2.
(Imagine that a squad digs in/hides or generally makes themselves harder targets to shoot. Feel no pain doesn't work against instant kill and because they are dug in their position they can't react as quickly to attack as they have to get themselves upright and ready to fight)(This rule is designed to have a good advantage and a bad disadvantage)

Breaking from Combat
*At the begining of an assualt phase you declare you are going to flee from a combat
*Your opponent does all the attacks possible and are resolved normally whilst the squad(s) that will flee are not allowed to attack back.
*Once casulties are removed, roll a dice and the number rolled is how many "models" stay behind to fight on whilst their comrads flee.
*The models that flee can do so without risk of being caught by sweeping advance and count as having lost a morale test so will need to regroup as normal on their next turn.
*The models that "Stayed behind" are automatically counted as destroyed and counts as a massacre for the opponent regardless of how many rounds of combat have been fought.
(Imagine that the squad knows they have no chance so they concentrate on ducking and dodging instead of attacking as they are gearing up to be ready to run away. A few brave souls stay behind against impossible odds to allow their comrads to flee in time and to have a chance to get revenge)(I've tried to maintain a decent risk when doing this so smaller squads are unlikely to achieve this whilst larger squads have the man power to effectively hold the enemy up without losing the whole squad)(I also wanted to give the opponent a chance to get a 6" movement which could be used to re-assualt the enemy making it even more risky to do it)

Deepstrike
*Play as per deep strike rules in the rulebook as normal
*Once all models are placed declare that the deepstriking unit is going to Shoot OR Assualt. Not both, pick one and you are unable to change that decision once declared.
(Myself and my opponents rarely use deepstrike in our games so we wanted to make it a viable option for the rare amount of times that we do deepstrike. As you can only do one or the other and must declare what you are doing it doesn't give a huge advantage

Posted By hellsguardian316 on 06/04/2007 5:00 AM

Deepstrike
*Play as per deep strike rules in the rulebook as normal
*Once all models are placed declare that the deepstriking unit is going to Shoot OR Assualt. Not both, pick one and you are unable to change that decision once declared.
(Myself and my opponents rarely use deepstrike in our games so we wanted to make it a viable option for the rare amount of times that we do deepstrike. As you can only do one or the other and must declare what you are doing it doesn't give a huge advantage

Unless your opponent suddenly realizes that holding units in Deep Strike to counter other Deep Strikers is a worthwhile strategy.

It's also very easy to nullify the advantage of deep strike if you know it's coming, assault or no. And assault screening becomes more important.